The Unit­ed States Coast Guard says the crew of the Coast Guard Cut­ter Joseph Tezanos re­cent­ly of­floaded 388 pounds (176 kgs) of co­caine, with a whole­sale val­ue of US$4.3 mil­lion, seized in the Caribbean Sea and trans­ferred cus­tody of two smug­glers to the US Drug En­force­ment Agency (DEA) Spe­cial Agents in Mayaguez, Puer­to Ri­co.

The US Coast Guard said the in­ter­dic­tion is the re­sult of mul­ti-agency ef­forts in sup­port of the Caribbean Cor­ri­dor Strike Force. 

The ap­pre­hend­ed smug­glers are US cit­i­zens, who face fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tion in Puer­to Ri­co on crim­i­nal charges, in­clud­ing con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess with in­tent to dis­trib­ute a con­trolled sub­stance aboard a ves­sel sub­ject to the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Unit­ed States.

The charges car­ry a min­i­mum sen­tence of 10 years im­pris­on­ment and a max­i­mum sen­tence of im­pris­on­ment for life.  

The US Coast Guard said, dur­ing the morn­ing of Sep­tem­ber 28, the crew of a US Coast air­craft de­tect­ed a sus­pi­cious 22-foot sport-craft ves­sel in the Caribbean Sea nav­i­gat­ing to­wards Rincón, Puer­to Ri­co.  

Denise Fos­ter, Spe­cial Agent in Charge, DEA Caribbean Di­vi­sion, said: “This op­er­a­tion un­der­scores the in­cred­i­ble pow­er of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween agen­cies like the DEA, Coast Guard, and our fed­er­al and lo­cal part­ners. 

“It is through this uni­fied ef­fort that we can ef­fec­tive­ly com­bat transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions and dis­rupt their il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties,” she said. “The team­work demon­strat­ed in this case is a shin­ing ex­am­ple of how, when we come to­geth­er with a shared mis­sion, we strength­en our abil­i­ty to pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Puer­to Ri­co the US main­land and abroad from the scourge of drug traf­fick­ing. 

“These part­ner­ships are not just crit­i­cal; they are the cor­ner­stone of our suc­cess in keep­ing our com­mu­ni­ties safe,” Fos­ter added. 

SAN JUAN, Puer­to Ri­co, Oct. 6, CMC –

CMC/nk/kb/2024